For some time now I notice that "ps" gives me some strange output
after some time. When I first invoke it after a reboot, most of
the processes it lists also have their argument list displayed.
But after some time less and less processes have their arguments
displayed, and after a few minutes all of them are only displayed
in brackets. Here is an example display produced a few seconds ago:
PID TT STAT TIME COMMAND
0 ?? DLs 0:02.04 (swapper)
1 ?? IWs 0:04.04 /sbin/init
2 ?? DL 1:35.52 (pagedaemon)
41 ?? IWs 0:00.14 (portmap)
49 ?? Ss 0:07.46 syslogd
64 ?? Ss 2:38.16 update
66 ?? IWs 0:05.24 cron
72 ?? IWs 0:00.54 (lpd)
77 ?? IWs 0:02.54 (sendmail)
79 ?? IWs 0:02.78 (inetd)
111 ?? Ss 6:14.33 SCREEN (screen)
3422 ?? IWs 0:00.37 (pppd)
112 p0 IWs 0:18.84 -usr/local/bin/tcsh
3771 p0 IW+ 0:01.84 elm
3773 p0 IW+ 0:00.24 sh -c jed /tmp/snd.3771
3774 p0 S+ 0:14.87 jed /tmp/snd.3771
113 p1 Ss 0:37.40 -usr/local/bin/tcsh
3776 p1 R+ 0:00.23 ps -ax
118 p2 IWs+ 0:27.75 (tcsh)
121 p3 IWs+ 0:03.35 (tcsh)
123 p4 IWs+ 0:01.53 (tcsh)
3351 e3 IWs 0:04.45 -tcsh (tcsh)
3767 e3 IW+ 0:00.88 screen -r
A few minutes ago that "(sendmail)" f.e. looked like "sendmail: accepting
connections" (or something like that). Also some of those processes
(the ones that were invoked more recently) have their argument list
displayed (like that "sh -c jed") but some are only displayed in brackets
(most notably pppd and sendmail).
I'm running a -current kernel around July 6th. And yes, I did replace
libkvm AND the ps binary (I tried with various versions that I got at
the time I compiled the kernel) but I always get the same behaviour. Just
to be sure I grabbed the latest ps and libkvm from ftp.luth.se and
compiled a new (statically linked) ps that produced the same results.
Could somebody please explain to me why this happens? Is anybody
else noticing this or am I doing something wrong?
Blaz
P.S.: This is on NetBSD/amiga.
--
Blaz Zupan, Ljubljanska 19/b, 62000 Maribor, Slovenia
blaz.zupan@uni-mb.si, 2:380/104.40, GMIZO::BLAZ